


Only Delayed

by TheLadyMagician



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Not an AU but also an AU, Revenge, Story within a Story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-11 23:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4457150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyMagician/pseuds/TheLadyMagician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cole is sick in bed and Varric decides to cheer up the newly human kid. Who cares if he's also getting some feedback for his newest book?</p><p>A Princess Bride AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tklivory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tklivory/gifts).



> My 'Not So Secret but Also Secret AU' which is actually not an AU. 
> 
> Gifted to the amazing tklivory who keeps me company at work all day, lets me read her AMAZING--seriously guys, it's fucking amazing--upcoming work, and pretty much brainstormed the entirety of this fic. And major kudos to the lovely jacatlyn who beta-ed the first chapter for me!

Varric knocked on the door, waiting for Cole's weak 'Come in' before actually opening it. Cole was lying in bed, surrounded by a hundred handkerchiefs, more than a few bottles of elfroot potion, and a few curious nugs who seemed to want to cheer up the boy without knowing how. 

"Hey kid, how are you?" Varric asked as he pulled up a chair to sit next to the boy. 

"Is this how people always feel?" Cole asked, looking at Varric with those two bright pleading eyes. 

"Nah, just when they're sick. You'll go back to feeling like normal in no time at all." At least, Varric hoped. Who knew what a spirit's immune system looked like. On top of that, how the hell did he manage to catch something?

"Oh," Cole said, absentmindedly running his hands over the bravest of nugs who was contentedly sleeping on Cole's chest. "I always saw people sick--dying--and wondered what it felt like. I'm glad I helped those people."

"Whoa, hey, you're not _dying_. Just a touch of a sniffle. It'll be gone in a few days. In the meantime, I figured someone ought to help you for a change. Make you feel better, anyway."

"You can make the sick go away?"

"Nope, but I can distract you from it for a while." Varric pulled up the bag he brought with him onto his lap, finding his latest work in the satchel. The book was still only thin paper, bound in the barest of string, but it hadn't been edited yet. Cole being sick gave him as good a time as any to get some feedback. "You just need to promise you won't dip in my head. Story's no fun to tell if you already know the ending."

"I won't," Cole promised, looking at Varric in curiosity. "It's harder to see the hurt now than I'm human. Is this one of the books Cassandra likes so much?"

Varric coughed and cleared his throat. "Uh, no, kid. You're not old enough for that yet. You and I? We're just going to start off with a love story. A nice, clean, not smutty love story."

"Are there rabbits in it?"

"Sure, why not? I'll throw some rabbits in there."

"Good, I like this story," Cole said earnestly. The poor boy had been sick for a day or so and was, in Varric's professional's opinion, terrible at dealing with it. Granted, the boy was only a few weeks into being a bit more solid. Humanity worked well with Cole, despite what Solas may think. 

"Alright, settle in. You'll be feeling better in no time. I don't have a title for the book yet, but maybe something will come to me.

"Chapter one. Prince Dorian--"

"Dorian?" Cole asked as he leaned forward. Suddenly, the kid was a lot more interested in the story. "Does he know you're writing about him?"

"Nah, some things you just got to surprise people with, you know? Later on, you and I can tell him how long ago I wrote this." Oh, that would be a sweet day, Varric thought. He'd be spending half the Inquisition's gold, at any rate. Why people thought it good business to bet against a dwarf was anyone's guess. "So Prince Dorian was raised in a pretty little castle in the heart of Minrathous. His favorite pastimes were working on magical theory, and of course, torturing one of his father's soldiers, the Fereldan ex-Templar, Cullen Stanton Rutherford."

"But...Dorian's not a prince and Cullen hasn't been to Minrathous."

"It's a story. Made up."

"So you're...making something?" Understanding flashed in Cole's eyes, "Like mages do in the Fade? Like magic?"

A dwarf capable of magic? "Something like that." Cole seemed to take it as fact, as if words were suddenly magic. Not that they weren't, but Varric felt a little more powerful now with the image. He might not have a staff like any of the mage's running around Skyhold, but if Cole thought his stories were magic, well, his pen might as well be a staff. 

"Anyway, Prince Dorian loved to order the soldier around. 'Chantry boy,' Dorian would say, 'do make sure my saddle is gleaming. It wouldn't do for me ride with the Archon with a disgrace of a saddle.'

"And Cullen, well, all he ever said to Prince Dorian was 'As you wish.' It took Dorian a long time because the Tevinter's head is thick and both he and Cullen are idiots, but eventually, Prince Dorian noticed that whenever Cullen said 'As you wish,' he really meant 'I love you.'"

"But Cullen hasn't said that yet," Cole protested. "He wants to but the words catch, caught and cobbled together with so many convictions and confessions. 'Mages aren't people like you and I.'"

Varric winced. Yeah, the dwarf liked the Commander and all but that didn't mean that the man had a squeaky clean record in Kirkwall. He helped in the last fight, but Cullen wasn't exactly always on Hawke's side, especially not when Blondie came into the picture. Whatever happened in Kinloch had also left its mark on the Fereldan, but Varric was the last person to go digging into someone's past. Nothing good ever came from that. 

"In this story he has. He says it every time he says 'As you wish' to Prince Dorian, and Prince Dorian notices. But like I said, the guy's an idiot. He never tells Cullen that he loves him back. Instead, he flees into the castle and stops speaking to his favorite soldier. Cullen believes it's his station that Prince Dorian has a problem with. Soldiers in Tevinter aren't exactly cream of the crop, you know. So the guy sails across the Waking Sea to his homeland of Ferelden to make his fortune and win the fair hand of Prince Dorian.

"He never makes it to Ferelden, though. His ship is attacked by the Dread Pirate Nox, who never leaves any prisoners. When Prince Dorian finds out, he swears vengeance. He may not have ever told Cullen that he loved him back, but that doesn't mean Dorian's just going to let his murderer walk free. 

"His father forbids him from leaving and tells Dorian of his imminent marriage to a neighboring noble. A marriage to Princess Calpernia would solidify Halward Pavus's position of power. But Prince Dorian can't stop thinking of the golden haired soldier with his earnest eyes as he declared his love. So one night, after a terrible fight with his father, Prince Dorian steals off into the night on his horse, making his way to the Waking Sea."

"But Cullen hates the Waking Sea. Who's the pirate? Calpernia isn't a Princess either."

"Look, kid, how about I just tell you the story? No questions until the end."


	2. In Which the Number Says Two but the Chapter is One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! This is a weird little thing I thought to do one day at work and tklivory tried to talk me out of it because I have so many chaptered fics already, but I'm a stubborn ass and didn't listen to her. Also, if you haven't, go check out tklivory's page. She writes one of my favorite fanfiction pieces ever and it happens to be Cullrian. You can find it [here. ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4628133/chapters/10552554)
> 
> This story is dedicated to her, tklivory, because she keeps me company at work and listens to me rant and is generally an all-around magnificent person who I'm seriously so fucking fortunate to have met.
> 
> For a forewarning, this is a weird piece and far and away much different than anything I've ever written. I'm trying to imitate Varric who's imitating William Goldman who's writing in the style of a fictional S. Morgenstern. Which means that the characters in this piece may be a little out of character to adapt them to their respective molds. This is somewhat intentional, but if you feel I've jumped the shark and went way overboard, _please_ let me know. I don't want the characters to turn into something unrecognizable. 
> 
> Expect slower updates than normal on this particular fic. I have to constantly reference back to the book, so it takes awhile to make sure I've gotten everything at least somewhat close to the source material :D

There were only a handful of times in Dorian's life where he honestly did not know where he was headed or what he was doing. While the Prince reveled in spontaneity, he rarely did anything without meticulous research into the subject beforehand. Running away on a whim was, in Prince Dorian's honest opinion, an extremely stupid thing to do. 

But the consequences of going back to his father's house were too great, so on he rode through the forest in a part he had only visited once or twice in his youth. The trees were tightly packed together, the branching nearly interwoven between the plants. The dirt path, only wide enough for two horses to ride, was the only clear part of the entire forest. 

_Rather marvelous spot for an ambush,_ Prince Dorian thought. And as Prince Dorian would tell you, he was correct more often than not. Or so he liked to think. But in this particular case, he was right about being right. 

In front of the mage stood two fellow countrymen and a hulking qunari. The qunari had a war axe hefted over his shoulder, no shirt, and a pair of pants that he surely stole off a poor unsuspecting clown. One of the Tevinters had a giant war hammer over his shoulder that looked more like a giant rock than a hammer. And the other Tevinter, the one in front with a look that screamed magister, had what Prince Dorian highly suspected to be a dead rat on his face. 

Honestly, the thought of an ambush offended Prince Dorian far less than what this man was trying to pull off as facial hair. And it wasn't like Dorian didn't know facial hair. If you were to ask him, he had the most impressive facial hair in all of Thedas. (This was debatable in fact. Certainly Dorian was in the top five, but there were rumors of two Gray Wardens who could give the Tevinter Prince a run for his money. Well, one true Warden and one "supposed" Warden, whatever that was supposed to mean.)

"Kill or capture?" Dorian asked when he got in earshot of the Tevinter magister.

"Pardon?" the man asked in a tone that was supposed to be innocent. However, Dorian couldn't imagine anyone with that sort of facial hair being anything but a tool. "We're but travel-"

"Yes, yes, you've worked tirelessly on your backstory and I apologize for cutting your bloviating short, but I'm in a hurry," Prince Dorian said as he pulls his horse back a bit. His father employed some of the best hunters in all the land for spying and they couldn't have been far behind. "Kill or capture?"

The qunari laughs as the magister in front of him sputters. "Just a kidnapping. We're not being paid for killing."

"Not yet," the Tevinter without the dreadful facial hair muttered to the qunari. 

Dorian could offer them money, if he had any. Normally it would be a bluff he could pull off but time was of the essence and if these were mercenaries, then he suspected they wouldn't actually do what he wanted them to do without seeing the money. Which put Prince Dorian in a tough spot as he didn't have money and couldn't risk finding money. The only thing of value he had was his birthright and that was something he'd rather hold onto until he had no options. 

Right now he had options. And while a kidnapping wasn't ideal, it was far superior to killing or the hunters at his back.

"And who hired you?"

"That's none of your concern," the lead Tevinter said. 

"Someone named Corypheus," the qunari answered, unperturbed by the magister's glare directed his way. "Lotta money to do it, too. But you're to get back to him in one piece. More or less."

"Wonderful," Dorian said as he dismounted his horse. "Then at your discretion....If you could be quick about it, though. Can't imagine kidnappings are paid hourly."

"We could always renegotiate," the qunari said as he walked up to the Prince and summarily bopped him on the head, catching the Tevinter prince in his arms as he fell to the ground. "See?" the qunari asked as he turned back to his companions. "This is the best kind of Vint. A quiet one."

***

Somewhere off in the distance, a Masked Man docked his large ship and commandeered a small boat. He felt bad about it, make no mistake, but it was late and the innkeeper/boat owner/brothel owner/cook was fast asleep. The Masked Man left a bag of gold and a note. 

**For the boat.**

**-The Dread Pirate Nox**

So it could be said that he actually bought the boat, but the Masked Man still felt guilty, so he decided to add 'Commandeered a boat--twelfth offense' to his list of sins. It was a list he really felt he should stop adding to.

***

"You can't just add an article to your name," said Prince Dorian to qunari who was most decidedly called "Iron Bull" and not " _The_ Iron Bull." People can't just add articles to names. He was not "The Prince Dorian"....

Well, actually, he supposed he was to some people. Never mind that. Articles were not for names, they were for titles, and titles were bestowed to people by other people. You can't just give yourself the title "Iron Bull" and expect people to add "The" at the front.

It had been more than a few days since his kidnapping and they had made it across Tevinter and Nevarra into Kirkwall. They didn't stay long in the shit-hole, a blessing in Dorian's mind, and were currently in a small boat trying to make it across the Waking Sea. Prince Dorian had been a model kidnap victim until the moment the Waking Sea came into view, but he had little choice in the matter. Where they were headed was little concern to Dorian. The further they got from Tevinter, the better.

"Says who?" Iron Bull asks. 

"Books. Scholars. Common sense. I've a myriad of others if you want me to continue."

"You sure you can't knock him out again, boss?" Krem asked. Formally Cremissius Aclassi, but he was a Tevinter hating Tevinter, so Krem it was. 

"Nah, we risk damaging him. Mages, you know? Squishy as hell."

"Would you two be quiet?" Erimond hissed. He was the man with the offensive facial hair and Prince Dorian discovered that it rather fit the man. He was, as a whole, one of the most offensive people that Dorian's ever had the pleasure of meeting and Dorian was unfortunately well acquainted with the Prince of Starkhaven. Or what the Prince of Starkhaven became. Dorian was rather fond of the Prince when they were both younger. 

Very fond. 

"He wants us to be quiet, boss," Krem said with a grin that he fixes the qunari's way. 

"If we were, it'd be a great _loss_ ," the qunari replied, adding unnecessary inflection to the last word in Dorian's mind.

"Definitely a more boring ride."

"We'll have to go below deck and _hide_."

"If you two aren't silent," Erimond hissed, "I will have you tossed from this ship."

"No need to be so snip."

"That's a pretty good quip!" Bull exclaimed as he laughed and clasped Krem on the shoulder, jarring the smaller Tevinter forward. "But in all seriousness, we've got a boat following us and picking up speed." 

"What?!" Erimond shouted as he raced towards the aft end of the boat. Surely enough, there was a small boat behind the boat Prince Dorian currently sat in. "How long has it been following us?"

"At least two leagues," Prince Dorian replied. He had been watching the boat as soon as it appeared from the mist. It was rather singular in its pursuit. "Though likely more."

"You," Erimond barked to Krem. "Take him below deck." The 'him' in question was Dorian if the violent jerk of his head were any indication. "That little dinghy won't make it to the Storm Coast."

"Sloop," Dorian said as Krem put his hand on the mage's back. "It's a sloop that's following us, not a dinghy. And you wondered why I didn't want to get in this blasted boat. I do hope your sailing skills are at least marginally better than your sailing knowledge."

"Krem!"

"Come on then, your highness," Krem said through a laugh as he lightly pushed Dorian to the door that led below deck.

"I envy you for the _dryness_!"

**"Bull!"**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bull as Fezzik and Krem as Inigo Montoya give me life, and I have to credit tklivory for that because I'm pretty sure she thought of this whole fic, I'm just writing it :D 
> 
> Thank you for reading! As always, comments and kudos definitely make me write faster and ensure that you get updates in timely matters :D Also, you can find me on [tumblr ](the-lady-magician.tumblr.com) where I take prompts and reblog all the Dragon Age things! I'm also starting to put some tumblr-exclusive Cullrian writings over there, so you know.....
> 
> ALSO! Cullrian Prompt Saturday is still VERY much so a thing! Please follow our [blog ](cullrianprompts.tumblr.com) where you can throw Cullrian prompts into the void and have magnificent artists and authors pick them up. Nonny or not, NSFW or not :D

**Author's Note:**

> The rest of the story will be more like reading the a story with some interjections by Cole and Varric as needed. I hope you guys like it because I've been so excited about sharing it with you all!
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are WONDERFUL. They keep me writing and my confidence up when my anxiety starts to whisper in my ear. 
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](the-lady-magician.tumblr.com) where I take prompts and reblog all the Dragon Age things!


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